Annual general meeting checklist for building committees

Six weeks before: fix the date, close the books

Start by choosing the date, then work backwards. The regulations usually say when the AGM must be held — often within a set number of months after the financial year end — and how much notice owners must receive. Fix a date that leaves the full notice period plus a week's slack, book a room or set up the video link, and decide who chairs.

Then close the books for the period. Every invoice for the year should be entered and allocated, every payment posted, and every owner balance current to the day. If the accounts are not final, the meeting will spend an hour on questions you cannot answer. This is also the moment to reconcile the reserve fund ledger to the bank balance, and to pull the compliance record — the lift certificate, the fire inspection, the insurance — so the state of the building is on paper.

Ask the committee what it wants decided this year. The budget and the reserve contribution are always on the list; add anything that needs a resolution — a works project, a change to the regulations, a new manager, a legal action — so it can go on the agenda in time.

Four weeks before: send the notice and the agenda

The notice must reach every owner within the period the regulations set. Fourteen days is common in many buildings' regulations, but some jurisdictions require longer — check yours, and if in doubt send earlier. Send it the way the regulations allow (email where owners have consented, post where they have not) and keep a record of who was sent what, when.

The agenda is not a formality; a decision taken on an item that was not on the notice can be challenged. List every item that requires a vote, in the order you will take them, with enough description that an owner can decide whether to attend or send a proxy.

• Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting
• Presentation and approval of the accounts for the year ended
• Report on the building's compliance and maintenance
• Approval of the budget for the coming year and the resulting owner contributions
• Approval of the reserve fund contribution and the works plan
• Election or confirmation of the committee
• Any specific resolutions, each as its own item
• Any other business — for discussion only, not for binding votes

Include the proxy form with the notice, and the deadline for returning it.

Two weeks before: circulate the pack — accounts, budget, reserve

The pack is what turns a meeting into a decision. Send it with the notice or no later than two weeks before, and put in it:

• The income and expenditure account for the year, by category, compared with the budget.
• The balance sheet, or at minimum the bank balances of the operating and reserve accounts at year end.
• The arrears total and the number of owners in arrears — as figures, not names.
• The reserve fund statement: opening balance, contributions, withdrawals, closing balance, and the plan it is funding.
• The proposed budget for the coming year, with the allocation method for each category and the per-share result.
• The compliance record: each item, last inspection, next due, open defects.

Owners who have read the pack ask better questions and vote faster. Owners who have not will ask for the figures during the meeting; having them on one page saves the evening. Domera produces the statements and the compliance export from the same ledger, so the pack figures match what each owner sees in the portal.

The week before: quorum, proxies and attendance

Quorum is the minimum presence — in person or by proxy — for the meeting to make binding decisions. It is set by the regulations or by law, often as a majority of owners or of the shares. Count it before the day: chase proxies from owners who cannot attend, and know in advance whether the meeting can proceed. Many regulations provide that an inquorate meeting is adjourned and reconvened with a lower or no quorum — but only if the notice said so.

Proxies should be in writing, name the owner and the proxy, state the meeting, and arrive before the deadline. Check them against the ownership record: an owner who sold in March cannot vote in June, and a unit with two owners may need both signatures or the one named as representative. Where votes are weighted by share, the attendance record must carry each attendee's share so the count is right.

On the day: run the agenda, record the votes

Record attendance as owners arrive — name, unit, share, in person or by proxy, and who holds the proxy. Confirm quorum and announce it. Then take the agenda in order. For each item that requires a vote, state the motion, take the vote, and record the result as counted: for, against, abstain, by heads or by share, depending on what the regulations require for that kind of decision. Ordinary decisions usually need a simple majority; changes to the regulations or major works often need a qualified majority — check which applies before the vote, not after.

Decisions should be specific enough to act on. "Approve the reserve contribution" is not a decision; "approve a reserve contribution of €3,840.00 for the year, collected monthly by ownership share from 1 January" is. If the meeting agrees to obtain three quotes for the roof, minute who will obtain them and by when. Domera's meetings and AGM module records attendance, weights the votes by the building's key, and keeps the agenda as it was noticed so the minutes match.

The day after: minutes, write-backs and what owners receive

Write the minutes within 24 hours while the room is fresh: date, place, chair, attendance and quorum, each agenda item with the motion and the counted result, and the actions with owners and dates. Circulate them to all owners — including those who did not attend — in the manner the regulations require, with a deadline for corrections.

Then do the write-backs. Every decision that costs money or requires work should exist somewhere other than the minutes by the end of the day: the approved budget becomes the coming year's charges; the reserve contribution becomes a recurring charge line; the works decision becomes a task with an owner and a due date; the decision to refer arrears becomes an action for the manager. A completed AGM also satisfies the recurring requirement to hold one that many jurisdictions impose, so record the completion date in the compliance record.

Finally, tell owners what changes for them: the new monthly contribution, the date it starts, and where they can read the minutes and the pack. A short note the day after the meeting — here is what was decided and what it means for your statement — does more for trust than the meeting itself.